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Mpls. teacher contract approved

Minneapolis public school teachers now have a contract that adds four days to the school calendar beginning this fall.

The Minneapolis school board voted Tuesday evening in favor of the new two-year contract, approved by the teachers union over the weekend. According to the school board's released statement, the district "moves from having one of the shortest school years in Minnesota to having the longest school year of any public school district in the state."

The contract pays teachers for the extra days. It amounts to a little over $3,000 more a year.

The new contract requires a committee to decide when teachers are placed in the district's lowest-scoring schools. The district said in the statement, "While this does not specifically eliminate the seniority-based 'last in-first out' policy regarding teacher placement and transfers, it does provide a viable collaborative mechanism to ensure that there is no forced placement in the school district's most struggling schools."

Teachers and the board also agreed to increase the number of teacher prep days.